Dell PC reporting fatal hard disk error

littlerock

My Dell PC is reporting a fatal hard disk error which is a bit of a surprise since it is quite a high spec pc and only 3 years old (Seagate HD) . Still it hasn't gone yet and I have backed up my personal data and files. But not the software, OS (windows 7 pro) etc. If I get a local repair firm out and the pc holds out, will they be able to "mirror " the software and transfer onto a new hard drive and reinstall it back into the PC?

And please no one write back and tell me pc is out of date/ Dell are rubbish and other negative comments . Not everyone can or wants to replace their PC every couple of years.

pappa_golf

yes a person can "clone" a hard drive to a new one

AndyPix

Yes, you (or the professional of your choosing) will easily be able to clone your hdd and swap it out for another.


May I ask , how is your machine informing you of this problem ?
Is it at boot up, or whilst windows is running ?




Andy

Johnmcl7

It would be easy enough to image yourself and I'd do it straight away while the drive is still functioning, sometimes these warnings are irrelevant and the drive will last many years or it could completely die tomorrow.

Which Dell PC is it? Although some of the newer ones particularly the sleeker laptops are tricky to replace the drives, on many others it's a very quick and easy job to replace the drive.

John

littlerock

!I'm not too sure what triggers the message as I noticed it first on bottom right of screen when I returned to the PC which was running at the time. The Dell diagnostics only say your drive indicates that a failure may be imminent. It is a Vostro desktop.

GunJack

so, get an external hdd and a copy of macrium reflect free and image the internal drive to the external.

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

you'll need something like imgburn to burn the iso to a cd/dvd to be able to boot from it

http://filehippo.com/download_imgburn/

littlerock

thanks for all the advice. I am not sure I trust myself to copy over all the data so I contacted my friendly neighbourhood techie about copying over the HD onto a new one and he said, predictably, that at three years old my PC needed replacing. (rolls eyes). The thing is I also have a laptop running windows 8.1 and I hate it. And I am not happy at moving directly to win 10 I would prefer to stick with window 7 pro for now.

(just to say it has an i5 processor , Nvidia graphics and 1tb memory so I do not think it is that old hat. it motors along quite nicely.)

littlerock

just to ask, if I bought a new windows 10 pc, would all my win 7 pro software be compatible?

GunJack

littlerock wrote: »

I contacted my friendly neighbourhood techie about copying over the HD onto a new one and he said, predictably, that at three years old my PC needed replacing. (rolls eyes).

(just to say it has an i5 processor , Nvidia graphics and 1tb memory so I do not think it is that old hat. it motors along quite nicely.)

:eek: :eek: :eek:

what a load of utter tosh!!! your pc is more powerful than any of the machines I have...... I would suggest you need to find a proper techie, as this one certainly isn't "friendly"..

stator

download a tool to read the SMART data for your hard drive and post here.
SpeedFan is one piece of software that does this.

googler

If you have the install discs that came with the PC, and the OS is included therein, you don't need to copy all this stuff off the HDD.

Just get a new HDD or SSD, install it, and load the OS etc.

One option is to take the existing HDD out, install an SSD as your primary drive, and load the OS. Then install the current disc as a secondary.

With your data backed up elsewhere, you can reformat the HDD, run diagnostics, etc., with no fear of upsetting your OS disk (the primary).

Essentially, your PC was supplied with one HDD - you don't HAVE to stick with this one HDD setup.

It's much safer to have OS/software and data separated, so that if you have to reinstall OS or software, you're in no danger of overwriting or losing your data. It's a simple process.